Darkroom Cinema Mobile App

The speculative Darkroom Cinema is a regional movie theater chain showing new releases as well as special showings of classic films, providing a welcoming environment for casual attendees and cinephiles alike. The project presented here is a wholly new mobile app for the chain. The goal for the product was to enable a wide cross-section of users to make easy and confident movie ticket purchases while engendering loyalty and repeat business.

Challenges to Address

1. Provide a familiar experience — Users most comfortable with the in-person ticket-buying process want a recognizable digital experience.
2. Lower the burden to successful checkout — Make sure users aren't turned away by distractions or onerous login requirements.
3. Allow a quick, frictionless path — Speed and ease of checkout is important for experienced users.
4. Bridge the digital and physical experiences — Ensure users know the next steps to follow when checkout is finished.

Research

User Interviews

In order to understand why users currently use mobile apps for purchasing movie tickets, why some moviegoers are hesitant to puchase tickets though an app, and what frustrations they all encounter, I conducted a series of interviews. I drew my participants from a cross-section of ages and genders; what they had in common was that they attend the movie theater at least twice in a normal year. Through these interviews I identified three key pain points:

• Unfamiliarity: Users accustomed to buying tickets at the theater but not through apps are intimidated by a new and unfamiliar process, but want the benefits.
• Time: No one, working adults especially, wants to spend unnecessary time purchasing tickets.
• Flow: Users are frustrated when they lose their place in the ordering process or information they’ve entered is discarded.

Personas

After analyzing the user interviews, I created two key personas to represent the user base as a whole.

Competitive Analysis

I analyzed mobile apps from several competing theater chains, making note of potential functionality gaps to address. All of the apps are generally of good quality and offer more or less the same basic user flow: select a movie, showtime, seat(s), and then enter payment info to purchase the tickets. The key observations I made were:

• No app completely nails the user flow from start to finish.
• Sorting and filtering options are missing, spotty, or confusing.
• It’s sometimes unclear how to move backwards and forwards in the flow, and what selections will be lost when moving backwards.
• Membership and sign-in prompts are very much present; it's possible but harder to checkout as a guest.
• Brand presence varies from good to barely there.

Design and Testing

User Flow

Drawing on my initial research, I began the design process by sketching a basic user flow. The primary path consists of selecting a location, movie, showtime and seats, and then checking out. Ancillary functions, such as filtering movie selections and accessing account settings, are separated out into secondary paths.

Ideation

I explored a range of areas with hand-drawn wireframes. I gave a lot of attention to how the movies are presented on the main page, as this is where users will start after selecting their theater location. Other areas of focus include the date and time selectors, the seat selector, additional movie info, and the checkout screens.

Interactive Wireframe

I then brought the user flow and ideation together in a more polished interactive wireframe created in Figma. This would form the basis of the first round of usability testing.

Usability Testing

After creating a low-fidelity prototype, I conducted in-person testing with five participants. Participants were asked to complete a series of tasks and then answered scripted followup questions about their experiences. The primary findings were:

• Movie filtering was at best a novelty, and at worst confusing to some participants.
• Participants didn’t mind extra taps to get to additional movie info, but some participants missed it entirely.
• The location of already purchased tickets needs to be more obvious.

Refinement

After an initial high-fidelity prototype and a second, shorter round of user testing, I arrived at the current design shown here. Below are the four challenges outlined earlier and how I addressed them in final design.

Conclusion

Takeaways

The personas created from the initial user interviews were key to keeping the design on track. I was able to thread the needle between sometimes competing user interests and deliver a successful end design. User testing was also crucial. I kept the movie filtering option in multiple iterations of prototypes before testing revealed that there was no user need. This freed me up to simplify and streamline the main movie selection page.

Next Steps

Many competitors in this market also offer reward programs and the ability to pre-order concessions in their apps. Those features were beyond the product scope of the current Darkroom Cinema, but I think future development should look at incorporating those features.